Game Over (Week 15)

From my viewpoint, the blog tasks have had a positive impact on my English learning due to they kept me active practicing my English grammar and vocabulary every other week. It was a little bit hard to keep doing one once a week though.

The only thing I would add is that maybe adding interactive exercises between students from the same class could be interesting. They could make interviews to each other of any kind and write down their personal responses. I think interactive exercises could be funnier and also would give students the opportunity to socialize with other people from the class. Besides, erasmus would have the opportunity to approach Spanish students :)

Have a lovely summer everyone! 💕

Connecting words (Week 12)

Morning everyone!

Today we're going to deal with academic writing and linking devices. When writing an academic text, the author needs to be aware of the use of expressions and vocabulary. The writing must be formal. The following text is an good example of an academic text. I will underline the expressions which make it formal. 

The Judiciary of England and Wales and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service pride themselves on their friendly and effective relations with other judiciaries around the world. Every year we welcome many judges from other countries who are keen to learn more about our legal system. What you see today has evolved over 1,000 years; the judiciary is continuing to change and develop to meet the needs of our society and is widely regarded as one of the best and most independent in the world.
To meet the needs of society, our legal system is also complex. The International Team of the Judicial Of ce has produced a Visitors’ Guide to bring together a wealth of information about our judiciary and legal system it also provides an introduction to the work of organisations, such as the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service which support the justice system.
I believe this Guide will be an invaluable resource for any foreign visitor seeking to learn more about England and Wales today, the Judiciary of England & Wales and the English and Welsh legal system, and that it will enhance the quality of your visit. Please do take the time to read it. The excellent website for the Judiciary https://www.judiciary.gov.uk covers many of the topics discussed in this Guide in more detail.
I am grateful to the International Team for their work on compiling this Guide. I very much hope your visit to England and Wales is productive and enjoyable. 
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/international-visitors-guide-12.pdf

It can be seen a few academic examples underlined in the previous text. In general, the vocabulary used as well as expressions belong to a formal register, therefore, there are no colloquial expressions. Moreover, there are no contractions and the use of phrasal verbs help the author to avoid repeating verbs. Punctuation is correct and the information is organized which make clear the purpose of the text which is to inform the readers about the Court of England.

Linking devices also helps our purpose of writing an academic text. In the following chart we can observe a list of useful linking words.

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Today I will continue reading about Irish legends in order to finish my TFG.

Complaining (Week 11)

Hello followers! I hope you are doing okay!

Today we're going to deal with the issue of complaining. Depending on the context, you have to watch your expressions and words. In the case of formal contexts, everyone must make a correct use of their language at the same time they want to defend their point. Moreover, there are a series of phrasal verbs which can help to make clearer their opinion.

In the following chart it can be seen a few of useful examples of phrasal verbs which can help speakers to complain in a formal context:

Other phrasal verbs from the same family of the previous ones:

Cut off: to interrupt a telephone conversation. 

Call back: to telephone somebody again or in return. 

Get through: to succeed in speaking to sb on the telephone. 

Hang up: to end an activity. 

Speak up: to speak louder.
Break up: to stop being with someone.
Hold on: to wait for a shot time.
Put through: to connect.

The next text is an example of a complaint about Ryanair's services. I will underline the expressions used by the author in order to describe his complaint.

Having a bit of a hard time with Ryanair personally.

I filed a complaint, sent them an email to Ryanair Customer Service with my problems and to claim for the compensation under EU Regulation 2004/261 and they basically sent me some forms to fill in and send to One Claims Ltd (who are Ryanairs Insurance Company).  

When I sent the forms off, with the reasons for my compensation claim etc, paid to get them sent securely so that i knew they arrived .... One Claims just sent me an email saying that they only deal with insurance claims for Ryanair customers who have taken out their insurance, and that I have to get back in touch with Ryanair Customer Service team for anything to do with compensation.

Going to try again with Ryanair Customer Services, but nothing worse than having your time and money wasted due to poor service.

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Today I've been giving English lessons to my students! 

Under the weather with the weather (Week 10).

Good morning everyone! how are you? 

The weather is going to be the topic for this blog. Sometimes we struggle to look for vocabulary in relation to the weather. Here I provide you with a couple of pieces of news about weather issues. Additionally, I will underline the essential vocabulary: 

TEXT 1

The forecast for the next seven day period (1st to 7th May2018) indicates that:

1.   Rainfall is expected to continue over several parts of the Country with a general reduction in amounts and intensities.
   
2.   Significant increase in amount and intensity is expected over the Coast.
   
3.   Localized heavy showers and thunderstorms may occur over parts of the Lake Victoria Basin, the
   Highlands West of the Rift Valley, the Central and South Rift Valley, the Northwest, and the Central
   Highlands (including Nairobi), during the first half of the forecast period.
   Possible Impacts:
   
4.   Floods may continue to occur during the first half of the forecast period especially in low-lying and poorly drained areas that have already been receiving heavy rainfall.
   
5.   There may also be land-slides in areas where the soils have become saturated with rain and flood waters;
   
6.   Traffic disruptions may occur in urban areas during heavy downpours. 
   
   
   
   TEXT 2
   Under the influence of a Western Disturbance; a cyclonic circulation over Haryana and a west­east trough from northwest Rajasthan to central Madhya Pradesh in lower levels, thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds and moderate squall (speed between 50 to 70 kmph) is very likely at isolated places over Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh & Delhi and West Uttar Pradesh during next 48 hours. Hailstorm is also likely at isolated places over Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during the same period.
   ♦ Maximum temperatures very likely to remain in the range of 40­44°C over Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Interior Maharashtra and over some parts of Telangana, Rayalaseema and interior Odisha during next 2 days.
   ♦ Thunderstorm observed at a few places over Jammu & Kashmir; at isolated places over Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Assam & Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura, Kerala, Coastal Karnataka, North Interior Karnataka and Tamilnadu from 0830 hours IST of yesterday to 0830 hours IST of today.
   ♦ Yesterday, Heat wave observed at one or two pockets over Vidarbha. 
   
   The majority of vocabulary underlined in the previous texts are nouns which refer to weather phenomenons such as thunderstorm or rainfall. Then, there are other expressions which describe the kind of temperature that is expected, for instance, maximum temperatures of 40-44ºC. 
   
   In the following graphs, there is the representation of the intensity of rain conditions of two particular places. 
   
   
   

   

   
   
   

   

   
   Both graphs restrict its information to rain conditions and temperature. Besides, such conditions are represented through the same method: millimeters are depicted on the left of the graph, temperature are marked on the right and time is represented horizontally. 
   
   The origin of such rain conditions is unknown, nevertheless both places must be really different in terms of weather due to the graphs' information. In the first graph, it can be seen that there is very little rain at the beginning of the year. However, there is a noticeable raising in the following months: March, April and May, being april the one with highest intensity. Following with this graph, in the summer till September, there is hardly rain. Finally, in October, November and December, there is rain expected with a reduction in December.  
   In comparison with the first graph,  the second one presents abundant rainfalls. The beginning of the year is depicted as similar to the first graphs, nevertheless, from April onwards rainfalls are significantly increasing in amount and intensity. However, December seems to reduce rainfalls as well as in the first graph.  
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   Last weekend I have been reading the book "Leprechauns, legends and Irish Tales" in order to know more about the Irish culture! 
   
   

Natural wonders (Week 9)

Morning everybody! 

Now that I have presented you with examples of how to write discursive and narrative essays, I would also like to comment on briefly how to create a descriptive essay. 
The following essay is an example of a descriptive text of the well-known Grand Canyon that I am quite sure everybody has heard about this place. Moreover, I will underline the expressions that are used to describe this place. 

The Grand Canyon is a mile-deep gorge in northern Arizona. Scientists estimate the canyon may have formed 5 to 6 million years ago when the Colorado River began to cut a channel through layers of rock. Humans have inhabited the area in and around the canyon since the last Ice Age. The first Europeans to reach the Grand Canyon were Spanish explorers in the 1540s. President Benjamin Harris first protected the Grand Canyon in 1893 as a forest reserve, and it became an official United States National Park in 1919.

The Grand Canyon is located in northern Arizona, northwest of the city of Flagstaff. The canyon measures over 270 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and a mile deep, making it one of the biggest canyons in the world. This natural landmark formed about five to six million years as erosion from the Colorado River cut a deep channel through layers of rock.

The Grand Canyon contains some of the oldest exposed rock on Earth. The mile-high walls reveal a cross section of Earth’s crust going back nearly two billion years. These rock layers have given geologists the opportunity to study evolution through time.

The oldest known rocks in the canyon, called the Vishnu Basement Rocks, can be found near the bottom of the Inner Gorge. The Vishnu rocks formed about 1.7 billion years ago when magma hardened and joined this region—once a volcanic ocean chain—to the North American continent.

Today, tourists to Grand Canyon National Park can trace the canyon’s geologic history on the Trail of Time, an interpretive exhibit on the park’s South Rim.

https://www.history.com/topics/grand-canyon

In order to improve the description of this popular place, I would add the next information. Firstly, I would describe the type of climate of this place in order to depict the landscape in which it is encountered. The Grand Canyon is set in a desert, therefore it has dry weather conditions. Secondly, I would describe the colors of the rocks which are very characteristic of this place. The clay color of the Grand Canyon make of this place a striking one for tourists. 

Thirdly but not last, I would provide information about the shape of the rocks. As more specific you are describing a particular place, as more appealing your text can be! 

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This week apart from researching information to write my TFG for college, I've been looking for jobs in the USA for this summer. I'm looking forward to going for a new adventure! 

Narrative Essay Writing (Week 8)

Hello bloggers!

The last blog was about persuasive writing, in this one I'm going to deal with narrative essay writings. Finally, I'll compare both types of writing. 

The following webpages provide you with details on how to compose your narrative writing: 

1. https://fastessay.com/blog/a-step-by-step-guide-to-write-a-professional-narrative-essay/

2. www.pawneeschools.com/.../The%20Narrative%20Essay.docx (From this link you can download a PDF)  

Basically, the main characteristics to bear in mind when writing a narrative essay writing are the following ones. First of all, you need to divide your essay into three main paragraphs: introduction, body and conclusion. Specially, the body of the essay can be divided into two or more paragraphs. 

Accordingly, the information that you can find in each paragraph of the narrative essay is:

In the introduction: 

1. Where and when this story was originated. 

2. Explain how the story starts. 

3. Introduce the main characters of the plot. 

In the body:

1. Try to focus on a particular situation of the story and contextualize it.  

2. How did the characters act in such situations?

3. What effects have the characters' acts on them and how they feel. 

In the conclusion:

1. Explain what happened in the end.  

2. Summarise the emotional state of the main characters. 

The main different that narrative essays have in comparison with discursive writing is that you cannot give your point of view in narrative essays. Instead, you have to limit yourself to the discussion of the story without adding your own ideas.  

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This week I've been translating a legend due to complete the research of my TFG for college. 

Enjoy your day! 

Persuasion (Week 7)

Hi everyone! Today I'm going to deal with persuasive writing. How many expressions can we find to help us to be persuasive? 

The following expressions are useful to mean persuasion in English:
I am certain. . .
I’m sure that you can see that . . .
What needs to be done/what we need to do. . .
I ask you to think about . . .
I am writing in order to . . .
Nevertheless . . .
On the other hand . . .
It has come to my attention that . . .
If you move forward with . . .
Obviously. . .
Surely . . .
Regardless . . .
If [ ] were to happen, then . . .
This can be fixed by . . .
Although it may seem...

The previous examples can be found in  https://www.thoughtco.com/words-to-make-a-persuasive-argument-2086735

Other expressions that may help to adopt a persuasive tone:

I am speaking to you today because...
This needs to be dealt with 
It will ruin our quality of life. 
No-one but a complete idiot will believe that... 
Of course... 
Local people feel that... 
This will mean that... 
Another thing... 
Just think about... 
How could you (we) possibly... 
What would happen if... 
Do you want to be part of... 

In the following text, the writer is giving his opinion about the matter of lockers at school. I will underline the expressions that s/he uses for hypothesising: 

Lockers for Everyone

What would you think if you had to put your personal belongings in a crate, and every time you turn around something of yours were stolen? That is why I think students should have lockers. To protect their things, keep their things somewhere clean, and so they won't have to complain about carrying everything at once.

Students should have lockers because it will stop people from stealing their stuff.  For example, the children won't have to worry about their books, homework assignments, and personal belongings being stolen. The reason for this is that the children will have their own lockers plus their own locks, which only they have the combination to.  This will reduce cases where things are being stolen.

Students also should have lockers so they will have a clean place to put their books. What I mean by this is that many desks are rusty and have gum stuck under them.  Also, if you put you stuff into a crate then it is easily collecting dust. This connects to my argument because their stuff will be kept very clean in a neat environment if students are given lockers to use.  

My final reason why I think students should have lockers is so students won't complain about caring everything at once. The things that they may be caring everyday are very heavy.  This is important because students may suffer health problems from having to carry all their stuff everywhere.  Why carry books everyday why you can eliminate the pain by having a locker to store the things you don't need?  Also, they're always whining about having to carry all their books.  If we had lockers everyone would be happier.

          In conclusion I think students should have lockers. If we have lockers stealing in school would go down, it would create a safe and clean place for students to put their things, and students would complain less and be healthier.  If we had lockers, the school would be a happier place for everyone.  If you don't want your things stolen, contact your principal and demand lockers for your school.

https://www.ereadingworksheets.com/writing-worksheets/persuasive-essay-examples.htm

The writer uses several underline expressions in order to point out his opinion. Besides, the persuasive tone that s/he adopts in the text helps to highlight his hypothesis. 

I hope my blog gives you an idea about how to be persuasive through your writing. 

Have a good week!

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This week I've been translating an Irish legend written in Old English into Spanish. Such a challenging task to do! 

Telling the truth! (Week 6)

Hey people how are you? Getting ready for your vacations?

The topic of this week deals with lies. Are you able to find whether a person is telling the truth or lying to you? How could you know if someone is lying to you?

There are people that have their own theories about how to notice if someone is lying or not. It's just a matter of paying attention and hear directly to the person that is talking to you. This way, you can face him or her and try to analyze better the situation. In contrast, if you are not facing that person, it would be easier for them to get away with it in case they are lying.

According to some researchers that I've made about how to know if someone is lying to you, these are some key findings:

1. Someone who is lying to you tends to look dart back and forth due to their discomfort. In other words, they cannot look at you straight to your eyes. However, there are other theories which say that a person who lies normally look straight to your eyes thinking that this way, the other person couldn't think he or she is lying. Another sign to catch lies and has to do with the eyes is its blinking. If a person blinks a lot while saying something, at some point, it gets suspicious.

2. False smiles and face touchings are other ways to know whether someone is lying or not.

3. Excessive sweating can be a cause of nervousness and therefore, that can be a possible proof of someone lying. Normally people do not sweat when communicating something, so the apparition of this problem can be a little bit weird. This problem can also affect their breathing accelerating it.

4. Another effect of someone lying has to do with how he or she provides with the information. If they are repeating phrases or sentences and making too much emphasis on what they are saying, here we can capture a lier!

Anyway, it is not always easier to find a lier. Everybody tells lies at some point and sometimes, these lies are said for good to a certain extent. Nevertheless try to tell lies as less as possible!

Here I found some of the theories previously discussed:
1. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tell-someones-lying-by-watching-their-face-2016-1#pay-attention-to-which-direction-they-shake-their-head-12
2. http://www.businessinsider.com/11-signs-someone-is-lying-2014-4#3-they-tend-to-stand-very-still-

I watched the movie "Liar, Liar" a long time ago and it was hilarious! The facial reactions of the protagonist are a little bit exaggerated though. Nevertheless, that's is what the movie was about, the protagonist being such a liar most of the time.
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This week I've been practicing English with listening exercises.

Rave reviews (Week 5)

Hi bloggers!

Do you know how to write a review? Here I leave you an example of a review of a movie that I'm sure everybody has heard about it. The title is Alice in Wonderland and it is directed by Tim Burton. After presenting the review I'll comment on the structure of it. 

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland sees Lewis Carroll’s Alice returning to ‘Underland’ at the age of 19, falling down a hole in pursuit of the familiar white rabbit, and more importantly in flight from an unwelcome marriage proposal. She has no memory of her childhood visit, and the fantastical characters debate among themselves whether she is in fact ‘the right Alice’. But of course, really this is a question Alice herself must answer: can she remain the free spirit with the wild imagination that was encouraged by her late father, or must she ‘grow up’ and learn to conform to Victorian Britain’s expectations of a young woman of her social class? 

Naturally, the moral of Burton’s story is that freedom and imagination must triumph over conformism. As Alice’s father told her, all the best people are completely bonkers. But the moral is no less appealing for being predictable, and there are a few surprises and twists in the telling of the story. Significantly, screenwriter Linda Woolverton gives Alice herself the famous line about believing ‘six impossible things before breakfast’, something her father apparently used to do. In Lewis Carroll’s original Through the Looking Glass, it is the White Queen who reprimands the exactly-seven-and-a-half-year-old Alice for not trying hard enough to believe that the queen is a hundred and one, five months, and a day. Now Alice has internalised the lesson that believing the impossible requires imaginative effort, and is challenged to act on it.

In the real world, this means turning down the awful aristocrat Hamish, despite the wishes of her family and an entire garden party gathered to witness her acceptance. While Alice refuses to wear her corset, and prefers gazing at clouds to dancing quadrilles, she doesn’t know if she has the courage to assert her own wishes against such oppressive expectations. Hence the visit to Underland. Here, Burton and Woolverton slip Alice into the role of the young boy (another impossible thing) in ‘Jabberwocky’, the nonsense poem included in Through the Looking Glass. Alice must find the vorpal sword and slay the Jabberwock before she can return to the world and slay the dragon of an unwanted marriage.

The quest is enjoyable enough, with 3D effects adding to the impression that Alice is trapped in a computer game, and an impressive cast of gargoyle-like characters, including Helena Bonham-Carter as the huge-headed Red Queen and Johnny Depp as a tragic Mad Hatter. Alice herself is played by Mia Wasikowska (fresh from a more naturalistic teenage psycho-drama in HBO’s In Treatment), who brings just the right combination of vulnerability and assertiveness. If anything, though, the film is perhaps too star-studded, with celebrity turns like Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat distracting from the story.

The dramatic pay-off at the end is pleasingly unexpected, however. Having slain the Jabberwock and turned down Hamish, Alice announces that she will now take responsibility for her late father’s business. His impossible idea, now vindicated, had been to establish trading posts in the far east, and Alice now intends to expand into China. What a contrast with the more right-on 3D blockbuster Avatar, which slavishly follows the script of postcolonial guilt and suspicion of progress. By way of Underland, Alice takes herself out of her corseted role as a woman in Victorian Britain, and into the world. That sounds like progress to me. 

( https://academichelp.net/samples/academics/reviews/movie/alice-in-wonderland-directed-by-tim-burton.html) 

The first paragraph stands for the introduction of this review where the writer comments on the role of the protagonist of the movie, Alice. Each introduction has to have a thesis statement in the end. In this thesis statement the writer questions how the role of Alice is going to develop throughout the movie leaving the reader intrigued. 

The following three paragraphs reflects the body of the review. In the second paragraph the idea that the writer wants to discuss about the movie is the morality that Burton has and how it is applied in the movie to the characters. In the third paragraph,  the writer talks more specifically about the character of Alice and how Burton plays with it. In the forth paragraph, the writer discusses about the special effects that are added in the film.  

The last paragraph does not really look like as if it is a conclusion due to the new information that it is added on it. For instance, there is a reference to the movie of Avatar which has not been mentioned before. Nevertheless, at the end of the paragraph there is the response to the answer that the writer has asked in the thesis statement of his introduction. 

The language that the writer uses in this review is pretty formal and clear. He makes use of an specific vocabulary about movie production. He uses expressions such as "that sounds like...to me" that shows that the writer is establishing a voice, a tone and a personal style. This makes the review more attracting because he is expressing his opinion. 

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This week I've been doing exercises of use of English and inversions. 

Who we are... (Week 4)

In English we can find several expressions that include words related to parts of our bodies. A few examples are the following ones:
1. To give someone a hand. We also have this expression in Spanish and it means to help somebody.
2. To be in the public eye. People use this expression when referring to someone that is getting too much attention as happens with famous people.
3. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This expression is used when referring to someone that has done something wrong and so that he or she has to pay for it.
4. Don't put your foot in your mouth. This expression is used when someone wants to warm somebody else to be careful with what he or she says.
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Here there are a few websites where inversions are explained:

1. https://www.englishgrammar.org/inversion/
2. https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/inversion.html
3. https://www.learn-english-today.com/lessons/lesson_contents/verbs/inversion.html
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Today I started to read about legends in English!

In my view... (week 3)

Hi bloggers! It is everything okay?

Today I'm going to address my topic to just girls.
I'm sure that those ones that are very active in sports have said to themselves something like: I don't want to do weights in the gym because if I do it I'm going to look like a boy!
I'm afraid I don't agree with you about that. This isn't true girls and it is hight time to open your eyes.

It is normal that you think that doing weights can increase your muscles. Indeed, it does. Nevertheless, that does not mean that your body is going to become as heavyset as your boyfriend's.
For this reason and maybe similar ones, I see lots of you just doing cardio at the gym. Maybe, cardio isn't the key to achieve your physical goals. Doing cardio you just lose weight and do not work out to the full any part of your body. As a result you can look even weaker than before without achieving any strength. Is that what you want? Are you still going to call your boyfriend to lift a heavy bag for you? No girls that is not the attitude!

If this is what happens to you, I strongly recommend you interwove weights with cardio. Try to dedicate more time to weights though. Additionally, you should provide your body with the right food. You should try to eat healthy and try to include a bit of everything in your diet. This does not mean that you're going to starve eventually. On the contrary, you're going to enjoy your meal!

If you have any doubts, let me know it and I'll help you!
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Here I leave you some links where you can find explanations about the infinitive in English:

1º) https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/infinitive
2º) https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verbs/infinitive
3º) https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/infinitiv_to.htm
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Today I've been reading legends in English!

Essay Writing (Week 2)

Hi everyone! how are things?

The topic of today is essay writing. Before discussing about the difficulties you can find when writing an essay here I provide you with a few links to writing labs online.

1º: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
2º: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
3º: https://owl.excelsior.edu
4º: https://writing.colostate.edu

From my experience, the major difficulties when writing an essay are the following ones. First of all, it is the organization of ideas. When I see the topic of the essay that I have to discuss, I do not know how to start organizing the ideas that I have in mind. Nevertheless, when this happens, I imagine an outline of the essay in my mind rather than writing it in order to save time. Secondly, the structure of sentences. Most of the times I write long sentences that don't go anywhere. So long are my sentences that sometimes they lose meaning. In these situations I try to organize them into shorter sentences so that the information I want to discuss sounds better. Thirdly and most challenging difficulty when writing an essay it is the time. I consider myself truly complicated when it comes to make a decision. The same happens when writing an essay. I normally change the way I want to say something constantly. Sometimes I overthink about anything and that is not a positive point to myself.

Nevertheless writing essays is a matter of constancy. You can improve your writing skills by writing essays from time to time. That way, you will surpass yourself. In my case, I feel proud of the positive progress I have achieved writing in English. Now I have a highest level in grammar and vocabulary and I am more fluent!

What about you? Have you notice any progress in your English writing in the last few years?
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I've been watching my fav TV show in English with English subtitles in order to improve my fluency in English!

Language. (Week 1)

Hello everybody! how is it going? 

This week I am going to focus on the topic of languages. Here I present a chart of some languages that already exist in the world. 

How many languages do you speak? 

In my case, I've already studied seven languages for different purposes. First of all I studied English for academic purposes. Nonetheless, I continued studying it for pleasure apart from working purposes. After English, I studied French as well. I started learning it when I was 12 and eventually I got a B1.3 level of proficiency in the different skills of writing, reading, listening and speaking. 

In high school I studied Latin and Greek for study purposes but I didn't really enjoy them. 

Finally in my first year of college I started to study Chinese and Hebrew. I loved studying Chinese. It was quite interesting to interpret the different signs in its writing, however, it took too much of my time because I had to study a lot. Same happened with Hebrew. It was a very peculiar language and it kept me interested till I passed my final exam. 

Between all the languages I've mentioned, I'm continuing learning English and French. It is amazing to be able to communicate with people from other countries if you speak more than one language, principally English. 

Moreover, I'd love to learn other languages such as Portuguese. I like how it sounds and I am sure it wouldn't be as difficult as Chinese. 😂

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This week I've been reading in English to improve my writing skills. 

Advice to improve your English. (Week 15)

Writing blogs in English every week can help your brain to start working quicker when it comes to develop a theme in your second language. It's good to have a different topics to discuss every week. This way, students get to look for vocabulary of different fields. 

Nevertheless, it would be good to have more requirements and restrictions when it comes to develop the theme of the week. Restrictions and requirements such as, to make a few researchers and include them in a bibliography, number of words, to watch a few videos to comment on them... Different ways when it comes to write about a topic. 

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To improve my English I've been doing exercises about multiple choice and open cloze due to the English grammar.

Color meaning. (Week 14)

Morning Bloggers, are you keeping up with all the food this Christmas? 😂
I was pretty busy these previous days but I don't forget you!
Today I'm going to discuss the following topic: Color meaning and Symbolism. To give my opinion I'm going to continuously reference the next article from Rebecca Gross. She entitles this article as "Color Meaning and Symbolism: How to use the Power of Color in your Branding" and here I leave you the content https://www.canva.com/learn/color-meanings-symbolism/.

Is it true that any color conveys a meaning? In my opinion colors can stand for certain feelings, institutions, countries, sensations... anything that I can think of. When you think about a particular color, there must be an idea that come straight to your mind.
Let's think about the color red for example. What have you thought of in the first place? The first idea that has come to my mind is Christmas. Obviously, the different associations to colors depend on other factors such as one's culture or ideology. Therefore, if you ask a Jewish person on Christmas the same question about the color red, he or she probably is going to come up with other associations.

Additionally, not always a color has positive connotations. Rebecca Gross mentions in her article that the color red, not only has positive connotations but also negative ones. Red can be the color of fire, blood or danger. However, it can be also the color of love and passion. Sometimes these connotations are attached to a particular color just because that certain material or fluid in reality has the same tone of color, as happens with blood. But, what about abstract concepts? Abstract notions are not represented in reality with a physical shape. Thus, we cannot visualize the color of them. Nevertheless, through history, people have always been attaching colors to certain abstract ideas due to their relation with other visual concepts in reality. A good example is the concept of love. Love has been always represented by the red color. An explanation for this attribution can be the relation of the heart with the abstract concept of love. You love with your heart and the heart is red. As a result, love must be represented with the color red.

The same happens with the rest of the colors although the number of associations to them can vary. In the article of Rebecca we can see a few examples of colors and their possible "universal" associations. Nonetheless, as I have mentioned before, these associations to a particular color is a question of culture and ideology.



Through the using of colors in a particular picture we can also deduce the emotions and feelings that an author wants to emit. Here I present a well-known painting of Edvard Much which is called "The Scream".

In this picture the author is using strong colors as red, yellow or blue to highlight the intensity of the character's expression. And you, what do you think?
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To improve my English I've been doing exercises about multiple choice and open cloze due to the English grammar.

Making decisions. (Week 13)

Hello everyone!

Today I'm going to do a short review about not a movie but a TV show called "13 Reasons Why" have you watched it? 

13 Reasons Why is "an american drama-mystery web television series" created by Brian Yorkey. The main protagonists of the TV show are Hannah Baker and Clay Jensen. In the first chapter of the season Hannah Baker is introduced as a character who has recently died. The following chapters are about a series of contributions that have been enough for Hannah to kill herself. Both the audience and rest the characters of the TV show get to know all her reasons to her own death through 14 tapes that she has recorded herself. 

This TV show has gained a great success due to the plot that it develops. The principal location of the plot is the high school, where all these characters spend most of their time. This high school is as one where you can feel an atmosphere of prejudices upon people. There is this division between the popular ones and the nerd ones. Hannah is not categorized in any of these groups, she is depicted as the weirdo of the high school due to she is the new one. 

Hannah's contact with this new atmosphere is not quite successful. She tries to make friends but these friends seems not to be the ones that last long. Therefore, Hannah starts to collect her bad experiences all together which give rise to her fatal inner emotional state. Consequently, as she cannot bear this situation, she puts an end to her life. 

The plot of this TV show can be pretty influencing from a negative point of view. I like how the characters are performing on stage as you can take them seriosly, nevertheless this does not mean I like the plot. Hannah's exaggerion of her feelings is taken to an extreme which is not the solution to her situation. The solution to students who can be bullied both psychologically and physically, they must go to the authority in each case, and let know what is actually happening.

This TV show has shown a negative morality when it comes to give a "solution" to Hannah's life. As a conclusion, I think it is not the solution to bullying and that they should clarify this idea in the following seasons.
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I'm continuing doing exercises of word formation and rewritings to improve my English grammar constructions.

Have a nice weekend!

The Fashion Show. (Week 12)

Interview 

Jennifer Lawrence interviews Kim Kardashian: This is what we learned: 

1. Jennifer Lawrence got drunk with Kris Jenner.

"I've never seen my mom more drunk in our lives," Kardashian said about Lawrence's recent trip to Jenner's mansion for dinner and drinks. "I was way more drunk than your mom," Lawrence told her. "You take it easy on your mother." Kardashian and her husband, Kanye West, also attended the dinner, where Lawrence apparently asked Kardashian for gas relief medicine (hence the farting question).

2. If Kim was stranded on a desert island with her family, she'd kill Khloe last ... or maybe first.

Lawrence asked who Kardashian would kill last if she were stranded on a desert island with her family. "My kids?" Kardashian said. "Oh, wow, I forgot children ... now I feel guilty," Lawrence joked, before pivoting the question to just include Kardashian's famous siblings. Kardashian said she'd kill Khloe last "because I feel like she might kill me."

"Well then, Khloe would actually be the one you'd have to kill first," Lawrence noted.

3. Kanye West can fall asleep pretty much anywhere.

Lawrence asked about the weirdest thing Kardashian's husband does. "He falls asleep anywhere. He'll introduce me to people I've never met before and we'll be at a restaurant and he'll be, like, snoring at the table," Kardashian said.

Report on the interview 

In the first part of the interview it can be seen how Kardashian admits that she had not seen her mom more drunk in their lives. Nevertheless Lawrence reacts to this admission affirming that she was way more drunk that Kardashian’s mother. Apart from this, Lawrence said to Kardashian to took it easy on her mother.

In the second part of the interview Kardashian was asked who she would kill last on a desert island. To this question Kardashian responded that she would kill her kids with a sarcastic tone. Additionally she said that she had forgotten children and therefore, she felt guilty. Later on, Kardashian changed her mind and she said that would kill Khloe last because she felt like she might kill her. To this reaction, Lawrence noted that Khloe then would actually be the one who Kardashian would have to kill will have first. 

In the third part of the interview, Kardashian was asked about the weirdest thing that her husband did. She mentioned that he felt asleep anywhere and that he would introduce her to people she had never met previously and that they would be at the restaurant where he would be like snoring at the table. 

Here I show you some of my favorite trendy clothes that Kardashian is wearing:

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As I’ve mentioned in the previous post, this week I’ve been looking for exercises to practice word formation and phrasal verbs in English.

You live and learn. (Week 11)

Hello bloggers! how are you doing? 

The topic of today is “you live and learn”. I’m sure everybody has thought about going abroad and staying there for a couple of years to study. Nevertheless, information about programs that allow you to study abroad seem to be like taboo topics in the educational system. Nobody provides information about the great variety of programs that we have to study abroad, except for the Erasmus scholarship. Luckily, nowadays having internet we can make our own research about all these programs that offer this experience of going abroad to study. 

The decision of going to study to other countries depends on the situation of each one. A student can have the opportunity to study abroad not only in college but also in high school. There are also another programs that offer the activity of going to achieve academic skills abroad during the summer. 

Any program has its own requirements in terms of grades, language, price, locations… therefore, having decided your preferences, I’m sure you can find a program that suits your profile you perfectly. 

Having spent awhile looking for different types of programs of studying abroad, here I provide you the list of ones of the most successful ones: 

To study abroad in high school during both the academic year and the summer: 

— https://www.aspirebyapi.com/summer-study-abroad/ireland/dublin/walton-international-stem-experience/program-information

— https://forum-nexus.com/study-abroad-programs/forum-europe-summer-2018.asp?fnsrc=63

— https://www.aspirebyapi.com/summer-study-abroad/france/paris/french-language-immersion-program/program-information/

To study abroad in college during both the academic year and during the summer:

— https://www.cisabroad.com/?s=summer 

— http://www.fie.org.uk/programs/by-term/summer

— https://teanabroad.org/programs/summer-programs/

I strongly recommend to any student of any professional field to try one of these wonderful experiences. It will be a great positive point for your CV I promise!

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This week I’ve been looking for exercises to practice word formation and phrasal verbs in English. Challenging exercises! 

Reports and proposals. (Week 10)

In this blog I'll present you and an example of a report and a proposal to stand up the different parts of them. Additionally, this will show how they differ from each other.

Here I provide the link where we find a good example of a report of the Brooklyn book festival: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/09/report-on-the-brookyn-book-festival-2009.html. 

Now, I'll copy and analyze the different parts of the report for you to see how it is constructed. 

Introduction: Maybe not every community should have a book festival, but Brooklyn, N.Y., showed how to throw an excellent one Sunday. With more than 150 booksellers, magazines and other bookish folks set up in tents on the plaza in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall, and dozens of free readings and panel discussions, the event was accessible (some people just stumbled on it) and festive (they stayed).

Discussion of where poetry, rock and hip-hop intersect focused:A must-attend panel, moderated by Touré, featured hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and poets Tracie Morris and Matthew Zapruder. Their discussion of where poetry, rock and hip-hop intersect focused on words. Fiasco -- who resisted fans' efforts to get him to say when his album will be released -- explained that before he worked with music and beats, he filled notebooks with words. "I had a plethora of words," he said. "See how many pieces I could collect." Zapruder concurred, saying, "I find words that attract me ... and I set myself this task of making something out of them." But Moore saw words as a mutable part of rock and roll, "slurred language," which could be misheard and mis-sung, unintentionally making songs over.

Future of literature and publishing:Two separate panels wrangled with the question of the future of literature and publishing. In the first, author T Cooper lamented, "I can't help but talk about the business, when I want to talk about the art"; Keith Gessen responded, "I like to talk about publishing. I live in New York, it's fun to talk about publishing." But the business got less attention than the Internet, blogs in particular, which were seen as amateurish and inclined toward posting book reviews next to cat photos (guilty as charged). An audience member -- writer Emily Gould -- asked what the future of literary fiction might be "if there's a consistent refusal to meet the audience where it lives," (i.e., online). Later, Gessen insisted that Gould had not been a plant.

"I do think people read differently online," Granta's editor John Freeman said in the second panel. "The trick now is to somehow make literature seem urgent." The worthwhile discussion was taped by C-Span for later broadcast; moderator Maud Newton suggested that literature had long been affected by evolving technologies -- and maybe our digital future isn't so bad. Despite the many looming challenges, this panel seemed optimistic. "In 10 years we'll look back on this conversation and laugh," said Dwight Garner from the New York Times. "Solutions that we cannot yet foresee will arise."

Comparison between contributors in Los Angeles Times Festival of books and The Brooklyn Book Festival: The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books had its own panel, featuring Angelenos who write about Los Angeles: L.A. Times books contributor Richard Rayner ("A Bright and Guilty Place"), Nina Revoyr ("The Age of Dreaming") and Judith Freeman ("The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved"), as well as David L. Ulin, L.A. Times books editor and editor of the Library of America anthology "Writing Los Angeles."

But a great number of the more than 200 authors that appeared at the Brooklyn Book Festival have lived in Brooklyn, including Paul Auster, Edwidge Danticat, Jonathan Lethem, Francine Prose and Colson Whitehead. The last appeared in the impressive marble-and-wood Borough Hall Courtroom and took this photo before his presentation, showing what it's like to be an author looking into the audience.

Conclusion: It's both wonderful and disappointing that the Brooklyn Book Festival takes place in just one day. For those who organized it, it's got to be a relief that it's over; but if it had lasted longer, I might not have had to choose between Jonathan Lethem and Mary Gaitskill (the latter, apparently, sang a Pizza Hut advertising jingle) and Jonathan Ames and David Cross, whose shenanigans closed out the main stage with much laughter. 

Here I provide another link. This time, with an example of a proposal http://grit.fltr.ucl.ac.be/article.php3?id_article=40&. This text is quite long to quote but it can be seen how the author proposes different plans to the reading of the book. She is making her own suggestions and opinions on the reading. 

Here through this outline of a proposal texts we can have an idea of the different parts that compose it:

Basically, the difference between both types of texts is that a report has as an aim to inform and the proposal has as an objective to make suggestions on something, that is, to propose regarding a theme.